


Colour Me Blue

by LaShaRa



Series: Snapshots [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Leonard Snart Lives, M/M, Mick Plays The Piano, Multi, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-22
Updated: 2017-01-22
Packaged: 2018-09-19 06:45:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9423068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaShaRa/pseuds/LaShaRa
Summary: It's the crack of dawn and they're both exhausted, but when Mick's hands touch the keys things get a little better.





	

Len’s so fucking tired.

He knows Mick must be too, because it’s the seventh time this week and they haven’t even made it to Wednesday yet. Still, he can’t stop gasping for air, can’t stop himself from struggling upright, scrabbling at the sheets as he flings himself off the bed. He falls hard onto his hands and knees and pain shoots up his wrists despite the softness of the new rug Mick bought last week, but he welcomes the ache. It gives him something else to grasp at besides the nightmares still echoing in his head – knife-sharp flashes of light, blue-white screams, flesh and blood and bone all shattering and igniting and wrenching apart over and over and over – 

There’s a loud thud and Mick’s feet hit the floor next to him. Large hands rub circles into the sweaty long-sleeved T-shirt on his back, moving from his shoulders to his spine and back again. Len gulps a few more times, feeling the trembling begin. His head is throbbing painfully, the way it always does when he wakes up like this, and his eyes burn from lack of sleep. Now that he’s beginning to breathe again, he finds his throat is parched. He pushes up onto his knees, lurches wildly for a second and falls into Mick’s lap. He latches his arms around Mick’s waist and buries his head in the folds of Mick’s pants. Mick’s hands move to stroke his head, long, firm fingers pressing into his temples, caressing the curve of his skull and digging into the tension at the nape of his neck.

When he thinks he can stand without falling over, he drags himself up onto the bed. Mick immediately pulls him into his side, wrapping both arms around him. He’s shirtless, the way he’s been every night for the thirty-odd years they’ve been sharing a bed, and Len lets his head drop against Mick’s broad chest. God, he’s so tired. He wants to sleep so badly, but he and Mick both know by now that there’s no way that’s going to happen anytime in the next three hours. Anyway, the room isn’t as dark as it was the last time he woke up; it’s probably near dawn. He feels a surge of guilt when he realizes Mick hasn’t gotten any sleep at all. Again. For about the sixteenth day in a row.

“Stop that.”

“Not doing anything.”

“Shut up, I can feel your forehead doing that crinkly thing. Quit it.” Mick’s hands are gentler now. “How bad?”

“Worst yet.”

Mick rumbles and Len feels it vibrate through his chest. “Go back to sleep?”

Len shakes his head once. Mick asks every time, but Len knows a lost battle when he sees one. 

“Coffee?”

He nods.

Downstairs light is leaking through the blinds; little bits of grey and tan, safe, non-trigger colours, are blossoming all around the living room. Len curls up on the couch, trying to block out everything except the familiar sounds of Mick moving around the kitchen. By the time Mick’s come back with a steaming mug of black coffee, the colours on the little glass table under the window have moved towards yellow and orange and Len’s breathing has almost returned to normal. He wraps one hand around the hot mug and the other around Mick’s fingers. Mick sits down next to him, pressed up against him from shoulder to ankle, and they watch the reflections edge slowly into gold. Now and then there’s the rumble of far-off tyres on gravel or a snatch of birdsong, but otherwise nothing to indicate that the rest of the world, well-rested and oblivious, is going about its business. Mick hadn’t given Len any explanation for why they were packing up and heading out to a small town in the middle of nowhere fifty miles from Keystone City, but thinking of the never-ending roar of Central, the gunshots that would find you no matter where in the city you went, Lisa with her constant worry raging just below the surface of her insults and Barry Allen flashing by every two days to check up on him and the beacon Sara gave them for the Waverider sitting on top of the safehouse fridge, Len thinks he gets it. He holds Mick’s hand a little tighter.

The reflections are growing. One of them reaches out, flaring along burnished mahogany. Len nudges Mick’s arm.

Mick follows his gaze. “Same as last time?”

“Please.”

Mick gets up and makes his way over to the corner; Len puts down his half-drunk coffee and follows him. The stool is old fashioned and easily big enough for both of them. Mick lifts the lid and cracks his knuckles. “Give me a few bars?”

Len hums. It doesn’t hurt his throat the way he thought it would. Mick listens for a minute or so and then ducks his head. His fingers move slowly at first, then begin to pick up speed, stretching and twisting and turning back on themselves, and sending the melody out into the air.

Len tucks his head into the space between Mick’s cheek and shoulder and exhales. He remembers the first song he ever heard Mick play – how could he not? He remembers being cold and bored hiding out in that condemned church after the third or fourth heist he’d pulled with Mick went wrong, sometime after he’d turned eighteen, and Mick had wandered over to the dilapidated piano by the altar and sat down. And then he’d started playing, that old Captain and Tennille song his mother had loved so much that she’d taught him to play it to her, and Len had sat right down on the tiles and listened for hours as Mick rifled through worm-eaten hymn sheets, his eyes growing calmer by the minute as the music came back to him, his smile growing softer, Len falling a little more in love.

Since then, they’ve come a long way from Love Will Keep Us Together. Mick can play anything by ear now, but as he moves through the song Len finds himself singing a line here and there, because there’s very little he’ll let Mick do alone these days. 

“I want you…to colour me blue…anything it takes to make you stay…only seeing myself…when I’m looking up at you…”

His voice is a rusted ghost of a tenor, long, long out of use, but Mick turns his head as he plays and presses his lips to the side of Len’s head. Len lifts his head and kisses the rugged swoop of Mick’s jaw, then settles his head back onto Mick’s shoulder. In spite of himself, his eyelids begin to droop. There’s a soft glow along the edge of the piano, and it flickers flame-like whenever the silhouette of Mick’s hands moves across it. The music softens. Maybe, just maybe, he’ll be able to sleep this time.

As he drifts off, he thinks he hears Mick’s warm baritone melding with the music from somewhere above his head. 

“…anything it takes to make you stay.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title and lyrics used are from Troye Sivan's Blue ft. Alex Hope. Had it on repeat while writing this at 12AM, because I had some major ColdWave feelings and just had to find some sort of release. Still crying, but I feel like it was worth it.


End file.
